The Men in Emma's Life
by almister12
Summary: The title says it all: a little fic about the men in Emma's life. Warning: Not Neal friendly.


_**A/N: This is a fic based on a gifset I made on tumblr. If you're a CS fan, you've probably seen it floating around.**_

**...**

**David**

"_Do I need a reason to want to go out to dinner with my daughter?"_ David asked.

Emma smiled through the phone. "No, but usually there is one, anyway."

"_This time there isn't. Believe it or not, Emma, I do enjoy spending time with you." _

"Okay, okay. What time and where?" Emma gave in, the idea of going out to dinner with her dad actually sounded kind of fun.

"_Leave all of that to dear old dad. Just come down and I'll be waiting outside of your apartment building at 6:30."_

Emma chuckled. "Alright. It's a date."

"_Bye, Emma. I love you."_

There was a pause, only briefly so that David wouldn't even notice, until she replied. "I love you too, Dad. See you tonight."

As she pulled the phone away from her ear and clicked the red "end call" button, Emma sat down on the bed. She rested her elbows on her knees and brushed her fingers through her hair, ending with her head resting down on her hands.

Emma loved David, and he loved her even more. Even knowing this, the words still felt odd in her mouth. Dad? Father? Those weren't words she was used to saying. Those were words for children who _grew up_ with their father loving them, chasing away their monsters, and having pretend tea parties. And Emma didn't grow up with a father, and so the words felt sour in her mouth.

She knew David's intentions were for a good reason. He was Prince Charming, the Enchanted Forest's most noble man. He was the person everyone looked up to. He was the bravest man she had ever met. It was this reason that David put her in that portal as an infant, he was being the hero that _he was_, the hero that he _still is_. Knowing this, reading the stories, and hearing him apologize didn't make it hurt any less.

She felt terrible when she thought about David this way. He loved her so goddamn much it killed her. But there were times she was by him, times when she said "Dad" instead of "David", times when she watched him hold baby Neal that she couldn't help but feel out of place in their father/daughter relationship.

Was it pain? Was it jealousy? She didn't even know the emotions that came with these negative feelings she had.

All she knew was the first man in her life, the first man who was supposed to protect her, left her to grow as an orphan.

…

**Neal Cassidy**

Emma held the swan keychain in her hand, looking at the little symbol that for years had taught her not to let people in, not to trust people.

_Neal picked up a piece of her hair and threaded his fingers through it. He cupped her face and brought her towards him, gently pressing his lips upon her own._

She hated him for what he did to her, she could never forgive him. Emma had trusted Neal, and as she ran her finger over the silver swan keychain, she couldn't fight the anger that was clawing at her brain.

"_I've never done this before," she admitted as they broke the kiss._

"_That's okay." He smiled, bringing her in for another kiss. "I promise I'll take care of you. I promise you'll enjoy it."_

Emma loved Neal. She would always love Neal.

"_I don't have protection," she tried to tell him as her body started to respond to his motions. She could feel a heat beginning in her belly as they rolled over, until she was looking at him hovering on top of her._

"_Don't worry about that," he assured her as he took off his shirt and threw it in the front seat. He leaned down again and started kissing her jaw line, peppering his way down her neck and kissing just above her tank top._

She hated Neal.

_Emma's breath hitched as his hand dropped to her paints, toying with the button. "Emma, we don't have to do anything you don't feel comfortable doing…" he said in a voice not quite his own, yet he didn't move his hand. He didn't go any further, but he also didn't retreat._

She would always **hate** Neal.

_As they were parked in the empty lot, Emma couldn't think. All she knew was that she wanted to give the man she loved anything and everything he wanted. If this is what he wanted, then that's what she was going to give him. He was always there for her, he was always going to be there for her._

_He promised her that he was going to be her home._

Neal was dead. You're not supposed to think poorly about the dead.

_She sat in prison, for a crime she didn't commit, looking at the lines telling her that she was pregnant, at 17, and she couldn't help but think what a fool she was._

The second man in her life abandoned and betrayed her.

…

**Henry**

As she opened the door to the little boy on her 28th birthday, her life was completely turned upside down. This 10-year-old was claiming he was her son, that he was the child she gave up when she was only 17.

It was a closed adoption.

He shouldn't know her name.

She shouldn't know _his_ name.

She brought him back to "Storybrooke", brought him to the Mayor's mansion, and said goodbye to the child she didn't want, the child she never wanted.

She didn't know what it meant to be a mother.

_She thought back to the prison all those years ago, how the other women would make fun of her. They would say cruel things about how she was alone and pregnant in jail, reminding her that, in fact, she __**was**__ alone and __**was**__ pregnant in jail. Her heart was still beating for Neal at the time, part of her thinking that there was a mistake, that he didn't do this to her._

_But the next second, she would wake up and her orange jumpsuit was too small, and she needed a bigger one to accommodate her growing stomach._

_There was this one old lady who cared about her, well, maybe. She looked at Emma with sad eyes from across the dining hall, an understanding behind them. Was it understanding? Maybe it was pity. Pity for the 17-year-old girl who fucked up her life so much._

_She sure as hell would have pity for a girl like that._

_She never got the courage to go over to the old woman, and she died while she Emma was still in prison. As she sat in the back row of the funeral ceremony, rubbing her stomach that the little baby was ferociously pushing against, she lost hope. Now she had no one._

_Not that she really __**had**__ this lady. _

There was a tiny ball of hatred in the pit of her stomach when she saw looked at Henry at first. He had the same shade of hair as Neal, his nose sort of resembled Neal's. Clearly, this child was a product of Neal Cassidy and herself. And every time she watched him play, or found him sitting next to her, she felt the betrayal all over again, she was reminded of her blocked out stint in jail.

But, against every fiber in her being telling her to go, still, she stayed. She kept her distance and called him "kid", but she stayed.

At the time she didn't know how much Henry was going to impact her life. But right now, the third man to come into her life, she wasn't ready to love yet.

…

**Sheriff Graham**

As she stood, getting her picture taken, she couldn't help but think the town's sheriff was cute.

_Okay, __**really**__ cute._

As she turned to the side, she flipped her hair, unconsciously hoping to make herself look better for this man. She felt herself roll her eyes as she closed them, annoyed with how flirty that must have seemed. She wasn't a teenager anymore, adults don't _flip their hair_ to make a man notice them.

As much as she wanted to say she stayed purely to get to know her biological son, she had to admit that she wanted to get to know this man, too.

Maybe it was his accent, maybe it was his curly hair. Maybe it was that she hadn't gotten laid in a while, but somehow, this was a man she wanted to know. For some odd reason she couldn't explain, she wanted this man in her life.

As she got to know her son better, she also got to know Graham better. And, she had to admit, she enjoyed his company. He was a distinguished member in the small town and many members of the community looked up to him. Graham even offered her a job as his deputy, indirectly telling her that he wanted her to stay.

Then she saw him walking outside of the Mayor's mansion late one night, and she realized maybe he _didn't_ want her in that same way. Maybe he only saw her as a friend. It wouldn't have been the first time she misunderstood a man's intentions.

No, they weren't dating, but she still felt like he cheated on her. At least, that's what she thought the feeling in her chest was.

One night, as he was drunk at Granny's Diner, he kissed her. He started saying things about how he didn't have a heart, how he was lost. Metaphorically speaking, of course no one could live without a heart, but she still didn't leave.

Maybe he _did_ want a relationship with her.

A few days passed, and he saved her from her newest fight with the Mayor. As he was tending to her wounds (that she well could have taken care of by herself if she had wanted), she looked into his eyes and realized that this might be the real thing.

It was early, but no one had taken care of her like that.

No one had looked at her like that.

No one had _kissed_ her like that.

_Didn't have a heart my ass._ What a foolish thing for Graham to say. What other reason could there have been for him to have a **heart **attack?

The fourth man in her life died in her very arms.

…

**August W. Booth**

It wasn't long after Graham died that August came to town. He was mysterious, the kind of man she was always drawn to.

That should have been her first clue.

She still went on their "drink" date. She still hung out with him. She still looked to him for advice. She had to admit, she liked the guy. He was fun to be around, and he was pretty good-looking.

Everything turned for the worse when August admitted that he knew her as a child. Well, technically a baby, for a brief moment. He claimed that they went through some portal together. He claimed they were in the foster system together. He claimed that he was blinded by desire and left to go to a place where lonely children enjoyed life.

_If that was true, why didn't he bring her? He had to have known she would grow up lonely. He had to have known she would have wanted to enjoy life, too._

Why was she even thinking this? Fairytales weren't real. What was with this town?

Then he dropped the final bomb: apparently, she was the savior, whatever the hell that meant. Savior of this town? Of this cute little place that had cute little shops and had a cute little community? What was there to save? She would have loved to grow up here and, while she hated to confess it, she actually kind of enjoyed living here. She saw herself being roommates with Mary Margaret for a long time, maybe even staying longer here than she had in Tallahassee.

He showed her his leg, his pale leg, telling her to believe it was made of wood. Like _Pinocchio_.

What a bunch of bull. She left him in the forest, refusing to look at him again.

It wasn't until after Henry was in the hospital, after she held the storybook and found out the sincerity of it, after she finally believed this town for what it was that she sought him out for help, but it was too late. As she looked not only at his leg, but also at his hands, and neck, and arms, and body, and face, she saw nothing other than a wooded man.

He apologized that he didn't bring her back in time. But that wasn't what he should be apologizing for. She needed him to apologize for leaving her all those years ago. She needed him to apologize for letting her grow up not knowing who she was. She needed him to apologize for _only coming back_because he was in pain, because he was turning back into a puppet and could no longer live the smooth life he had come to know.

It wasn't until his body froze, and he was nothing more than wood lying before her on the bed, that she left to finish what she started.

The fifth man in her life, "_Pinocchio"_, was too self-absorbed in his own life to care about hers.

…

**Walsh**

As she stood there, swinging a pipe at a flying monkey, she realized, once again, that having a man in her life was not in the cards for the savior. She wasn't meant to have a happy ending.

Karma? Was that really a thing? It had to be, she couldn't think of any other explanation for why she had another disastrous romantic relationship.

Weren't fairytale characters supposed to have happy endings? Didn't Cinderella marry Thomas? Didn't Ariel find Prince Eric? How was it only _her_ that couldn't be happy? Because she wasn't _really_ a character. She was just the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White. She didn't have a movie made after her, not a book. She was just Emma. _That's_ why she didn't get her fairytale ending.

What was worse was that she _liked_ Walsh. A lot. She saw a future with him. Sure, he had been going a little fast for her taste, but maybe fast had been good. Maybe she needed fast so she couldn't flee from him. Maybe fast was just what she needed in her life right now. Why wait when you know it's love?

What would their kids have been like? Smart, he was smart. Tall, he was tall. Funny, he was funny. Caring, he was caring. Definitely good looking. As she thought through all the characteristics their children could have had, she smiled. They would have been good children.

No, they would have been great children. They would have been great children who grew up to be great adults because they had a great father.

She'd be lying if she said she hadn't thought about marrying him. Who wouldn't? She had been dating him for eight months and, for the first time in any relationship she'd ever had, she introduced a man to Henry. That was a big step. She knew it, Walsh knew it, and Henry knew it.

Her eyes watered at the thought of them being happy, of them being a family. It was everything she always wanted, to have a home, to feel loved.

Well, apparently it hadn't been love. It hadn't ever been love.

The sixth man in her life, where she could have had a real future with for the first time, lied about who he was.

…

**Killian Jones**

He was Hook. Of Peter Pan's Captain Hook. As in the villain of a kid's cartoon with a mustache and perm. As in the man who spent 300 years seeking revenge on a woman's death.

But that wasn't _really_ who he was. He was Captain Killian Jones.

Killian came back for her, more times than she could count. Even before she was ready to admit that maybe this could be a person she wanted in her life, she could count on him. He saw right through her, he knew her better than she knew herself.

"_I think not having magic makes it a hell of a lot easier for you to run back to New York and pretend to be somebody else." _

Yes. She was an open book to him. He saw right through every charade she put up. He knew when she was lying, when she was telling the truth. He brought her walls down. Walls that had been rightfully stacked high for longer than she would admit.

"_When I win your heart, Emma, and I will win it, it won't be because of any trickery. It will be because you want me."_

He loved her, there was no other way for her to put it. He would do anything for her, no matter how stupid it would be or how much danger it put him in. He hated Neverland, told her how he wished he was off it every single day during his 300 years on the island. And, yet, he helped her save Henry, in the biggest possible way. He was willing to go back into the darkness for her.

"_Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad to hear that."_

"_You're glad to hear I had my heart broken?"_

"_If it can be broken, it means it still works."_

He put thinks in perspective for her. He made her realize that she can't deny Walsh happened. She can't deny August or Graham or Neal, or even David, happened. They all broke her heart, in different ways. But he also made her realize that there was good that came out of each abandonment. With Neal? Her son, Henry. With Graham? Realizing she could love again. With August? Belief in magic. With David? She was able to live, instead of stuck in Storybrooke as a baby her entire life.

When she asked him what point there was for Walsh, he simply said that he wouldn't have been able to save her if there hadn't been _something_ for him to save her from. ("Not that you'd ever need saving, Swan.")

"_There's not a day that'll go by I won't think of you."_

She knew it was true. She knew he spent a year of his life crying over her. She knew he spent a year of his life being a person **he didn't want to be** because of her. She knew he lost hope, that he thought he'd failed, that he didn't believe in himself anymore. She knew that that year was more painful for him than the 300 years he had spent avenging Milah's death.

"_All he said we need is magic. You're the savior, Swan. You can do it."_

He was the only person in her whole life to always encourage her. Even in the direst of situations – they were trapped in an exitless vault for godsakes – and he _still_ believed her. He still trusted in her. He still thought that she, and only she, could save them. Who puts that must faith in one single person?

Killian Jones put that much faith in her.

"_You traded your ship for me?"_

"_Aye."_

Killian traded his ship for the _hope_ that he could maybe find her.

The final man in her life traded his home so she could find hers. The final man in her life brought her home.


End file.
